Reducibility of varieties of commuting <i>m</i> -tuples of elements of simple Lie algebras (Q6969124)

Let \(m\in\mathbb{N}\) and let \(\mathfrak{g}\) be a Lie algebra. Define\N\[\NC_m(\mathfrak{g}) = \{ (x_1,\ldots, x_m)\in \mathfrak{g}^m: [x_i,x_j]=0 \:\:\forall 1\leq i,j \leq m\}\N\]\Nto be the \(m\)-th commuting variety of \(\mathfrak{g}\), which is related to Hilbert and Quot schemes in algebraic geometry. The author proves that the variety \(C_m(\mathfrak{g})\) of commuting \(m\)-tuples of elements of a simple Lie algebra \(\mathfrak{g}\) is usually reducible. That is, one of the main results of this paper shows that if \(m = 3\) and \(\mathfrak{g}\) is of types \(B, C, E_7, E_8, F_4, G_2\) or \(D_l\) with \(l \geq 10\), then \(C_m(\mathfrak{g})\) is reducible. Moreover, if \(m \geq 4\) and \(\mathfrak{g}\) is a simple Lie algebra different from \(\mathfrak{sl}_2\), \(\mathfrak{sl}_3\), then \(C_m(\mathfrak{g})\) is reducible. In order to obtain these results, one needs a more general result, which is another main result of this paper. It states that, under some mild assumptions, \(C_m(\mathfrak{g})\) is reducible whenever \(C_m(\mathfrak{l})\) is reducible for a Levi subalgebra \(\mathfrak{l}\) of \(\mathfrak{g}\).